OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
An Improved LPTC Neural Model for Background Motion Direction Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

A class of specialized neurons, called lobula plate tangential cells (LPTCs) has been shown to respond strongly to wide-field motion. The classic model, elementary motion detector (EMD) and its improved model, two-quadrant detector (TQD) have been proposed to simulate LPTCs. Although EMD and TQD can percept background motion, their outputs are so cluttered that it is difficult to discriminate actual motion direction of the background. In this paper, we propose a max operation mechanism to model a newly-found transmedullary neuron Tm9 whose physiological properties do not map onto EMD and TQD. This proposed max operation mechanism is able to improve the detection performance of TQD in cluttered background by filtering out irrelevant motion signals. We will demonstrate the functionality of this proposed mechanism in wide-field motion perception.
Structural Properties of Twisted Reed-Solomon Codes with Applications to Cryptography
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

We present a generalisation of Twisted Reed-Solomon codes containing a new large class of MDS codes. We prove that the code class contains a large subfamily that is closed under duality. Furthermore, we study the Schur squares of the new codes and show that their dimension is often large. Using these structural properties, we single out a subfamily of the new codes which could be considered for code-based cryptography: These codes resist some existing structural attacks for Reed-Solomon-like codes, i.e. methods for retrieving the code parameters from an obfuscated generator matrix.
Ongoing Events in Wikipedia: A Cross-lingual Case Study
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2018
Year: 2018

In order to effectively analyze information regarding ongoing events that impact local communities across language and country borders, researchers often need to perform multilingual data analysis. This analysis can be particularly challenging due to the rapidly evolving event-centric data and the language barrier. In this abstract we present preliminary results of a case study with the goal to better understand how researchers interact with multilingual event-centric information in the context of cross-cultural studies and which methods and features they use.
Capturability-based Pattern Generation for Walking with Variable Height
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

Capturability analysis of the linear inverted pendulum (LIP) model enabled walking with constrained height based on the capture point. We generalize this analysis to the variable-height inverted pendulum (VHIP) and show how it enables 3D walking over uneven terrains based on capture inputs. Thanks to a tailored optimization scheme, we can compute these inputs fast enough for real-time model predictive control. We implement this approach as open-source software and demonstrate it in dynamic simulations.
Differential Message Importance Measure: A New Approach to the Required Sampling Number in Big Data Structure Characterization
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

Data collection is a fundamental problem in the scenario of big data, where the size of sampling sets plays a very important role, especially in the characterization of data structure. This paper considers the information collection process by taking message importance into account, and gives a distribution-free criterion to determine how many samples are required in big data structure characterization. Similar to differential entropy, we define differential message importance measure (DMIM) as a measure of message importance for continuous random variable. The DMIM for many common densities is discussed, and high-precision approximate values for normal distribution are given. Moreover, it is proved that the change of DMIM can describe the gap between the distribution of a set of sample values and a theoretical distribution. In fact, the deviation of DMIM is equivalent to Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic, but it offers a new way to characterize the distribution goodness-of-fit. Numerical results show some basic properties of DMIM and the accuracy of the proposed approximate values. Furthermore, it is also obtained that the empirical distribution approaches the real distribution with decreasing of the DMIM deviation, which contributes to the selection of suitable sampling points in actual system.
E-swish: Adjusting Activations to Different Network Depths
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Activation functions have a notorious impact on neural networks on both training and testing the models against the desired problem. Currently, the most used activation function is the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU). This paper introduces a new and novel activation function, closely related with the new activation $Swish = x * sigmoid(x)$ (Ramachandran et al., 2017) which generalizes it. We call the new activation $E-swish = βx * sigmoid(x)$. We show that E-swish outperforms many other well-known activations including both ReLU and Swish. For example, using E-swish provided 1.5% and 4.6% accuracy improvements on Cifar10 and Cifar100 respectively for the WRN 10-2 when compared to ReLU and 0.35% and 0.6% respectively when compared to Swish. The code to reproduce all our experiments can be found at https://github.com/EricAlcaide/E-swish
Three Dimensional Fluorescence Microscopy Image Synthesis and Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Advances in fluorescence microscopy enable acquisition of 3D image volumes with better image quality and deeper penetration into tissue. Segmentation is a required step to characterize and analyze biological structures in the images and recent 3D segmentation using deep learning has achieved promising results. One issue is that deep learning techniques require a large set of groundtruth data which is impractical to annotate manually for large 3D microscopy volumes. This paper describes a 3D deep learning nuclei segmentation method using synthetic 3D volumes for training. A set of synthetic volumes and the corresponding groundtruth are generated using spatially constrained cycle-consistent adversarial networks. Segmentation results demonstrate that our proposed method is capable of segmenting nuclei successfully for various data sets.
DiscrimNet: Semi-Supervised Action Recognition from Videos using Generative Adversarial Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

We propose an action recognition framework using Gen- erative Adversarial Networks. Our model involves train- ing a deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN) using a large video activity dataset without la- bel information. Then we use the trained discriminator from the GAN model as an unsupervised pre-training step and fine-tune the trained discriminator model on a labeled dataset to recognize human activities. We determine good network architectural and hyperparameter settings for us- ing the discriminator from DCGAN as a trained model to learn useful representations for action recognition. Our semi-supervised framework using only appearance infor- mation achieves superior or comparable performance to the current state-of-the-art semi-supervised action recog- nition methods on two challenging video activity datasets: UCF101 and HMDB51.
Machine Learning and Finite Element Method for Physical Systems Modeling
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2018
Year: 2018

Modeling of physical systems includes extensive use of software packages that implement the accurate finite element method for solving differential equations considered along with the appropriate initial and boundary conditions. When the problem size becomes large, time needed to solve the resulting linear systems may range from hours to weeks, and if the input parameters need to be adjusted, even slightly, the simulations has to be re-done from scratch. Recent advances in machine learning algorithms and their successful applications in various fields demonstrate that, if properly chosen and trained, these models can significantly improve conventional techniques. In this note we discuss possibilities to complement the finite element studies with machine learning and provide several basic examples.
Code-Frequency Block Group Coding for Anti-Spoofing Pilot Authentication in Multi-Antenna OFDM Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

A pilot spoofer can paralyze the channel estimation in multi-user orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFD- M) systems by using the same publicly-known pilot tones as legitimate nodes. This causes the problem of pilot authentication (PA). To solve this, we propose, for a two-user multi-antenna OFDM system, a code-frequency block group (CFBG) coding based PA mechanism. Here multi-user pilot information, after being randomized independently to avoid being spoofed, are converted into activation patterns of subcarrier-block groups on code-frequency domain. Those patterns, though overlapped and interfered mutually in the wireless transmission environment, are qualified to be separated and identified as the original pilots with high accuracy, by exploiting CFBG coding theory and channel characteristic. Particularly, we develop the CFBG code through two steps, i.e., 1) devising an ordered signal detection technique to recognize the number of signals coexisting on each subcarrier block, and encoding each subcarrier block with the detected number; 2) constructing a zero-false-drop (ZFD) code and block detection based (BD) code via k-dimensional Latin hypercubes and integrating those two codes into the CFBG code. This code can bring a desirable pilot separation error probability (SEP), inversely proportional to the number of occupied subcarriers and antennas with a power of k. To apply the code to PA, a scheme of pilot conveying, separation and identification is proposed. Based on this novel PA, a joint channel estimation and identification mechanism is proposed to achieve high-precision channel recovery and simultaneously enhance PA without occupying extra resources. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our proposed mechanism.
Secure Mobile Crowdsensing with Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

In order to stimulate secure sensing for Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as healthcare and traffic monitoring, mobile crowdsensing (MCS) systems have to address security threats, such as jamming, spoofing and faked sensing attacks, during both the sensing and the information exchange processes in large-scale dynamic and heterogenous networks. In this article, we investigate secure mobile crowdsensing and present how to use deep learning (DL) methods such as stacked autoencoder (SAE), deep neural network (DNN), and convolutional neural network (CNN) to improve the MCS security approaches including authentication, privacy protection, faked sensing countermeasures, intrusion detection and anti-jamming transmissions in MCS. We discuss the performance gain of these DL-based approaches compared with traditional security schemes and identify the challenges that need to be addressed to implement them in practical MCS systems.
Super-Resolution mmWave Channel Estimation using Atomic Norm Minimization
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

We propose super-resolution MIMO channel estimators for millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems that employ hybrid analog and digital beamforming and generalized spatial modulation, respectively. Exploiting the inherent sparsity of mmWave channels, the channel estimation problem is formulated as an atomic norm minimization that enhances sparsity in the continuous angles of departure and arrival. Both pilot-assisted and data-aided channel estimators are developed, with the former one formulated as a convex problem and the latter as a non-convex problem. To solve these formulated channel estimation problems, we develop a computationally efficient conjugate gradient descent method based on non-convex factorization which restricts the search space to low-rank matrices. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the superior channel estimation performance of the proposed algorithms for both types of mmWave systems compared to the existing compressed-sensing-based estimators with finely quantized angle grids.
Comparison Training for Computer Chinese Chess
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2018
Year: 2018

This paper describes the application of comparison training (CT) for automatic feature weight tuning, with the final objective of improving the evaluation functions used in Chinese chess programs. First, we propose an n-tuple network to extract features, since n-tuple networks require very little expert knowledge through its large numbers of features, while simulta-neously allowing easy access. Second, we propose a novel evalua-tion method that incorporates tapered eval into CT. Experiments show that with the same features and the same Chinese chess program, the automatically tuned comparison training feature weights achieved a win rate of 86.58% against the weights that were hand-tuned. The above trained version was then improved by adding additional features, most importantly n-tuple features. This improved version achieved a win rate of 81.65% against the trained version without additional features.
Block arrivals in the Bitcoin blockchain
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

Bitcoin is a electronic payment system where payment transactions are verified and stored in a data structure called the blockchain. Bitcoin miners work individually to solve a computationally intensive problem, and with each solution a Bitcoin block is generated, resulting in a new arrival to the blockchain. The difficulty of the computational problem is updated every 2,016 blocks in order to control the rate at which blocks are generated. In the original Bitcoin paper, it was suggested that the blockchain arrivals occur according to a homogeneous Poisson process. Based on blockchain block arrival data and stochastic analysis of the block arrival process, we demonstrate that this is not the case. We present a refined mathematical model for block arrivals, focusing on both the block arrivals during a period of constant difficulty and how the difficulty level evolves over time.
What did you Mention? A Large Scale Mention Detection Benchmark for Spoken and Written Text
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2018
Year: 2018

We describe a large, high-quality benchmark for the evaluation of Mention Detection tools. The benchmark contains annotations of both named entities as well as other types of entities, annotated on different types of text, ranging from clean text taken from Wikipedia, to noisy spoken data. The benchmark was built through a highly controlled crowd sourcing process to ensure its quality. We describe the benchmark, the process and the guidelines that were used to build it. We then demonstrate the results of a state-of-the-art system running on that benchmark.
Side Information for Face Completion: a Robust PCA Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Robust principal component analysis (RPCA) is a powerful method for learning low-rank feature representation of various visual data. However, for certain types as well as significant amount of error corruption, it fails to yield satisfactory results; a drawback that can be alleviated by exploiting domain-dependent prior knowledge or information. In this paper, we propose two models for the RPCA that take into account such side information, even in the presence of missing values. We apply this framework to the task of UV completion which is widely used in pose-invariant face recognition. Moreover, we construct a generative adversarial network (GAN) to extract side information as well as subspaces. These subspaces not only assist in the recovery but also speed up the process in case of large-scale data. We quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the proposed approaches through both synthetic data and five real-world datasets to verify their effectiveness.
An Agent-Based Simulation Model for Optimization of the Signalized Intersection Connected to Freeway On-Ramp
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2018
Year: 2018

Unlike most existing studies on off-ramp traffic signal control, this paper focuses on the optimization problem of the signalized intersection connected to freeway on-ramps. Conflicts are often observed between the traffic heading to an on-ramp and the traffic continuing straight which leads to issues such as intersection overflow, increased delay, and concerns about safety. For studying this problem, a real-world signalized intersection in Buffalo, New York was chosen, which has two through lanes and one short shared (through and right-turn) lane. At the downstream of the intersection are two following on-ramps, one to the highway I-290 West and the other to I-290 East. During peak hours, the shared lane often observes a long queue, which furthermore blocks the through traffic on the parallel lane. To solve this problem, a VISSIM agent-based simulation model was built and calibrated based on field observations. Three potential optimization solutions were proposed and tested with the help of VISSIM: (1) increasing the length of the short shared through and right-turn lane; (2) making the short shared through and right-turn lane right-turn only, and (3) adding a new diverge lane for the right-turn vehicles. According to the simulation results, solution (3) performs the best, resulting in the least vehicle delay time.
Mitigating Unwanted Biases with Adversarial Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

Machine learning is a tool for building models that accurately represent input training data. When undesired biases concerning demographic groups are in the training data, well-trained models will reflect those biases. We present a framework for mitigating such biases by including a variable for the group of interest and simultaneously learning a predictor and an adversary. The input to the network X, here text or census data, produces a prediction Y, such as an analogy completion or income bracket, while the adversary tries to model a protected variable Z, here gender or zip code. The objective is to maximize the predictor's ability to predict Y while minimizing the adversary's ability to predict Z. Applied to analogy completion, this method results in accurate predictions that exhibit less evidence of stereotyping Z. When applied to a classification task using the UCI Adult (Census) Dataset, it results in a predictive model that does not lose much accuracy while achieving very close to equality of odds (Hardt, et al., 2016). The method is flexible and applicable to multiple definitions of fairness as well as a wide range of gradient-based learning models, including both regression and classification tasks.
Mistral Supercomputer Job History Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2018
Year: 2018

In this technical report, we show insights and results of operational data analysis from petascale supercomputer Mistral, which is ranked as 42nd most powerful in the world as of January 2018. Data sources include hardware monitoring data, job scheduler history, topology, and hardware information. We explore job state sequences, spatial distribution, and electric power patterns.
DeepGestalt - Identifying Rare Genetic Syndromes Using Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Facial analysis technologies have recently measured up to the capabilities of expert clinicians in syndrome identification. To date, these technologies could only identify phenotypes of a few diseases, limiting their role in clinical settings where hundreds of diagnoses must be considered. We developed a facial analysis framework, DeepGestalt, using computer vision and deep learning algorithms, that quantifies similarities to hundreds of genetic syndromes based on unconstrained 2D images. DeepGestalt is currently trained with over 26,000 patient cases from a rapidly growing phenotype-genotype database, consisting of tens of thousands of validated clinical cases, curated through a community-driven platform. DeepGestalt currently achieves 91% top-10-accuracy in identifying over 215 different genetic syndromes and has outperformed clinical experts in three separate experiments. We suggest that this form of artificial intelligence is ready to support medical genetics in clinical and laboratory practices and will play a key role in the future of precision medicine.
Expectation Learning for Adaptive Crossmodal Stimuli Association
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

The human brain is able to learn, generalize, and predict crossmodal stimuli. Learning by expectation fine-tunes crossmodal processing at different levels, thus enhancing our power of generalization and adaptation in highly dynamic environments. In this paper, we propose a deep neural architecture trained by using expectation learning accounting for unsupervised learning tasks. Our learning model exhibits a self-adaptable behavior, setting the first steps towards the development of deep learning architectures for crossmodal stimuli association.
Query Focused Abstractive Summarization: Incorporating Query Relevance, Multi-Document Coverage, and Summary Length Constraints into seq2seq Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2018
Year: 2018

Query Focused Summarization (QFS) has been addressed mostly using extractive methods. Such methods, however, produce text which suffers from low coherence. We investigate how abstractive methods can be applied to QFS, to overcome such limitations. Recent developments in neural-attention based sequence-to-sequence models have led to state-of-the-art results on the task of abstractive generic single document summarization. Such models are trained in an end to end method on large amounts of training data. We address three aspects to make abstractive summarization applicable to QFS: (a)since there is no training data, we incorporate query relevance into a pre-trained abstractive model; (b) since existing abstractive models are trained in a single-document setting, we design an iterated method to embed abstractive models within the multi-document requirement of QFS; (c) the abstractive models we adapt are trained to generate text of specific length (about 100 words), while we aim at generating output of a different size (about 250 words); we design a way to adapt the target size of the generated summaries to a given size ratio. We compare our method (Relevance Sensitive Attention for QFS) to extractive baselines and with various ways to combine abstractive models on the DUC QFS datasets and demonstrate solid improvements on ROUGE performance.
Server-Aided Revocable Predicate Encryption: Formalization and Lattice-Based Instantiation
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

Efficient user revocation is a necessary but challenging problem in many multi-user cryptosystems. Among known approaches, server-aided revocation yields a promising solution, because it allows to outsource the major workloads of system users to a computationally powerful third party, called the server, whose only requirement is to carry out the computations correctly. Such a revocation mechanism was considered in the settings of identity-based encryption and attribute-based encryption by Qin et al. (ESORICS 2015) and Cui et al. (ESORICS 2016), respectively. In this work, we consider the server-aided revocation mechanism in the more elaborate setting of predicate encryption (PE). The latter, introduced by Katz, Sahai, and Waters (EUROCRYPT 2008), provides fine-grained and role-based access to encrypted data and can be viewed as a generalization of identity-based and attribute-based encryption. Our contribution is two-fold. First, we formalize the model of server-aided revocable predicate encryption (SR-PE), with rigorous definitions and security notions. Our model can be seen as a non-trivial adaptation of Cui et al.'s work into the PE context. Second, we put forward a lattice-based instantiation of SR-PE. The scheme employs the PE scheme of Agrawal, Freeman and Vaikuntanathan (ASIACRYPT 2011) and the complete subtree method of Naor, Naor, and Lotspiech (CRYPTO 2001) as the two main ingredients, which work smoothly together thanks to a few additional techniques. Our scheme is proven secure in the standard model (in a selective manner), based on the hardness of the Learning With Errors (LWE) problem.